Sunday, June 29, 2008

There's Always a First Time

So we went to breakfast this morning: Me, my mom, wife and our former next door neighbor. I order -- "I'll take my chances on the Larry's scramble, since I'm not really sure what it is from your description" -- my mom orders poached eggs and corned beef hash -- which is how it's printed on the menu -- my wife gets Eggs Benedict and the neighbor says, "I want exactly what she ordered," as she points to my wife. Oh, Mom and I asked if we could substitute fruit for our toast and we were offered strawberries, which we said was OK. So...

The food comes. Notice I didn't say, "Our food." I got my scramble, which as far as I can tell was some chopped up sausage in scrambled eggs, with potatoes thrown in rather than hash browns on the side. My fault, I should have risked sounding rude and insisted on a better description... "Is it written down somewhere...?" Our friend/neighbor gets her Eggs Benedict. Mom gets her corned beef hash, but her eggs aren't poached, they're over easy. And my wife, who was the first to order Eggs Benny, gets the same as my mom. Oh and the fruit gets placed in front of my wife and mom, instead of me and mom. Whoa....

So... Back goes my wife's food. My mom's food? It sits on the table getting while her poached eggs are being made. So when the redos come to the table, my wife gets hot food, while my mom gets hot poached eggs to eat on top of cold corned beef hash. Sweet.

Not.

Then we get the bill. After waiting... after asking for it.

We get charged for the strawberries. Not cool. I've never been charged like that; it seems like standard practice to substitute.

The waitress: "Well I thought you could do that, but I was told you couldn't." Why didn't you tell us?

Fuck it... Time to find a manager. We tell him about getting charged and that in addition there 's the fucked up order we aren't happy about, and he says, he'll fix it. Thing is it takes about another 15 minuted to get back the bill that should have taken 15 seconds to redo.

No apology...

No card saying 1/2 off or $5 off the next meal there... we talked about walking out without paying, but...

For the first time in my life I walked out without leaving a tip. We left the exact amount to the penny.

2 comments:

About 6 or so months ago, we went to Red Robin. The wife, kids, wife's friend and her daughter. 3 Adults, 3 kids. 2 Kids under the age of 2. We ordered. Two tables near us emptied. Same two tables refilled with new people. New people ordered. New people got food. WTF?! 45 minutes after we ordered, still no food. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep 3 kids occupied at a table with no food, for 45 fucking minutes?! I asked the waitress where our food was. She checked, and said we ordered during a shift change, and our order got lost. Our food would be right up. They brought our food, what we originally ordered, which proved our order was not "lost". Took about 1 hour and 10 minutes, from the time we ordered. As I was finishing my royal Red Robin Burger, the waitress brings our bill and tells me she will see about getting us a discount. I simply said, "Discount? We aren't paying for this at all. My kids have been hungry for over an hour. We are finishing our food, then leaving." We never heard back, and I did not feel bad one bit for dining and dashing.

Pretty fucking ballsy to announce you're bolting, but I can see you're point for not paying. I can't imagine the fucking nightmare it would have been if we'd had the grandmonster along; or even worse: him with his mom.

I Confess:

I'm tempted to resurrect this blog, but I'm well aware of my own laziness and lack of ability to follow though on things. BUT... Weak or strong, loud or faint, can there really be too many voices against the wave of fascism that has given rise to Trump as president?